Our Story
Taking it back to the start
Our founder, Tim Cookson, first started the company based on three key ingredients: expertise – within the catering sector, passion – for helping others, and innovation – where he created, and continues to create many innovations in both the catering and consultancy sectors over the years.
Tim started out in the contract catering sector, where he enjoyed a long and successful career, enabling him to understand the sector from both the contractor’s and client’s point of view. During this, he became well versed in each of their pain points and issues.
In 1999, Tim started his own business; a business that has since grown and evolved into what is today known as The Litmus Partnership.
Initially, the focus was on one area: getting the best value out of client’s catering contracts.
Becoming renowned experts in this area, Tim and the business were often called upon as thought leaders in the industry for their insights and views on best practice – an industry at the time that consisted of mostly one-man-band consultants.
During this pivotal moment, Tim and his team were instrumental in paving the way for a new wave in the consultancy industry. They brought new and better ways of working as well as fairness for both the contractor and the client.
The evolution of Litmus
Tim didn’t stop there. The business has evolved from focusing solely on delivering best value catering contracts, to helping clients in many other ways from strategic reviews and benchmarking to insight & data and monitoring and everything between. An offering that sets Litmus apart from others.
Today, with Tim as Chair guiding the direction of the business, Litmus is the UK’s leading food service, purchasing solutions and facilities management consultancy.
Expertise
We recruit the very best Consultants to our team and offer unrivalled expertise across every market sector. Each of our Consultants have decades of experience and many have walked in the shoes of our clients before becoming Consultants. This allows us to be true specialists across the sectors we work in.
Passion
We love what we do. It’s all we’ve ever known. Our passion has led to our team growing from 2 to 50+ people, us working with over 3000 businesses, schools and organisations and saving our clients circa. 16% in operational costs & around 2000 hours per year in time. And we’re not stopping there.
Innovation
We’ve created various products in response to our clients’ evolving needs. From Consumer Insight and our Litmus Tender Management System to our Monitoring and Analytics, Kitchen Management, Procurement and Purchasing Solutions. This unique approach means we are constantly innovating.